


My Turn to Stare

by ImJaebabie



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, M/M, Making Out, but like later....not uh yet, canon? never heard of her, fluff with feelings?, mildly aggressive cuddling?, real soft, these awful romantics, this is just like some over-thinking and lots of staring???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 01:10:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15675000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImJaebabie/pseuds/ImJaebabie
Summary: Jaehyun loves the look of Taeyong in the mornings; Taeyong can't take his eyes off Jaehyun in the afternoon.





	1. Drinking It In

**Author's Note:**

> I literally....have no idea wtf this is. I absolutely promise it makes no sense whatsoever. thanks arena homme for making morning!Taeyong take up all the space in my brain...and consequently Jaehyun's.

Jaehyun thinks the soft way Taeyong looks in the mornings has to be illegal in at least one country, if not _every_ country. Eventually, someone will notice this and Jaehyun will be the one locked away for it, because of how much he stares and sighs and feels every muscle in his chest tighten just at the sight. Sometimes, often, it’s so overwhelming that he has to leave bed early, go distract himself with breakfast or showering or literally any fucking thing he can find, just so he doesn’t lose himself watching Taeyong slowly find his way awake.

“You’re really productive in the morning,” Taeyong tells him sometimes, smiling proudly. He seems pleased, as though Jaehyun is just an exceptional and motivated person like that.

Jaehyun just shrugs, feeling his face warm, because even dating officially it feels weird and difficult to admit to Taeyong all the ways he secretly adores him.

But if Taeyong could see himself, he’d _have_ to understand, wouldn’t he? Jaehyun thinks, waking just past dawn again as usual. He wasn’t always like this, such an early riser, but since Taeyong it’s like his heart and head have aligned and agreed that he can’t start the day without this visual to carry him through the next twenty-four hours. He can’t wait to open his eyes and turn immediately to his side, and see what way the night has chosen to leave Taeyong that will bless Jaehyun’s eyes each day. Somehow, each day he’s just as surprised, just as shocked when his breath momentarily leaves him at the first image to greet him. He feels stupid, too; often it’s only the back of Taeyong’s head, his hair a hopeless mess, or just his ear visible while the rest of his face is buried deep into the blankets. Jaehyun is reluctant to admit the number of times he’s carefully nudged the man just enough so he’ll reveal his face, but not quite breach the surface of consciousness.

“Good morning, hyung,” Jaehyun whispers, breathes really, words so quiet he himself can barely hear them even when he knows it’s not enough to wake the older. He can’t help being careful, because he can’t describe how much he revels in these moments.

It’s one of the days he loves most, when the night was a bit warmer than Taeyong would have it, and the morning finds him having kicked aside most of the blankets and lying more adjacent to his pillow than upon it. His matching white T-shirt and shorts make a clean contrast to the glowing golden skin of the rest of him, and in the thin morning light Jaehyun drinks the warmth off Taeyong with his eyes hungrily. It’s not that he doesn’t want to touch him—he would happily—but he doesn’t need to. The unfettered beauty basically paralyzes him anyway, so he lets his eyes do the touching instead.

His eyes touch on the disheveled chestnut hair that falls too much in Taeyong’s eyes, closed as they are with long lashes resting against his flawless skin. (Jaehyun has seen Taeyong with acne before, once or twice. He’s flawless anyway.) They touch, heart-numbingly, on the minutely parted lips, full and looking just as soft as he knows they feel, a shade of mauve that lipstick companies would fall all over themselves to know the secret of. They touch on the sharp cliff of collarbone peeking out from under white cotton, one of the many instances of impossible, sculpture-like angles Jaehyun has numbered along Taeyong’s body, and one of his favorites. They touch touch touch on everything, unresting, until his mind’s eye is so full Jaehyun has to take a long, deep inhalation with his eyes closed and count to ten.

Then he gets up. Different from other days, Jaehyun doesn’t want to leave the bed this morning with just a literal eyefull. His fingers tingle with summer heat, skin buzzing, and he wants to take a tactile memory with him today, something his hands will remember later when the hours crawl along. So he skims feather-light fingertips down the back of Taeyong’s thigh, from where his shorts end all the way to his ankle. The soft skin almost deceives his touch, hiding the taught muscle underneath, which Jaehyun can feel suggested as he trails along the crook of the knee to the swell of Taeyong’s calf, where a bit more soft hair tries to hide his strength. But not from Jaehyun, who knows how those legs look and feel coiled with tension, mid-dance or mid-step, or crossed over his lap, or straining with toes curled into the sheets while other parts of Taeyong arch elegantly—

Jaehyun wraps fingers around the slim ankle, squeezes lightly for a moment, let’s go. He lifts mostly off the mattress, weight shifting onto the grounded foot, and starts to move away—

“Not enough to only look today?”

The words that swirl into Jaehyun’s ears are low and raspy, still swollen with sleep, but they send a pulse through his chest anyway. He knew.

Turning back, Jaehyun meets the low-lidded eyes that stare up at him, notes the morning-drunk, teasing grin that spreads those mauve lips. He shivers.

“I just wanted to—”

“Jaehyun. You never have to ‘just’ anything with me.”

He quiets, nods. Still hovering with one knee on the bed, limp arms hanging at his sides with no instruction. There’s a part of him—deep under the carefully, painstakingly built layers of calm and reservation and stoicism, mixed in with just the appropriate amount of fun and flirtiness that he has slowly crafted—a part of him that wonders if he’ll ever lose this insecurity. It’s irrational, he knows it. Taeyong has assured him in every possible way—verbally, non-verbally, emotionally, _physically_ —that he doesn’t have to hold back, doesn’t have to restrain his thoughts and needs. But Jaehyun still struggles to unlock that inner safe and simply ask for what he wants, say what he’s feeling. That occasionally he worries Taeyong is too much for him and his weak heart.

Taeyong pushes himself up on his arms, straightening and scooting back until he rests against the headboard. He lifts a hand and motions Jaehyun to him. “Come here.”

Sometimes, Jaehyun hates how obedient he is, without a second thought or moment’s hesitation. He worries he’d do anything if Taeyong told him to.

It’s no different now; his other leg bends back to the sheets, and he knee-walks to where Taeyong fills the center of the bed and waits for him. He doesn’t rush Jaehyun, but he holds his gaze and breathes patiently until he’s close enough to reach. Then Taeyong’s delicate fingers curl around Jaehyun’s hips, stinging at the bare skin above the hem of his shorts where there’s no shirt to protect him. Taeyong pulls, and Jaehyun ends up straddling his lap with little effort.

“What is it you want? And no ‘just’,” he demands, voice still quiet, bright chocolate eyes now more open.

The light falling in through the open window looks down on Taeyong from the same angle Jaehyun does, a little bit above and just as adoringly. But it lacks Jaehyun’s pounding heartbeat. The way that Taeyong looks up at him, a mix of shy and open, with such unregulated _fullness_...he’s overwhelmed again, at a loss for the words to describe a want that he truthfully doesn’t even know how to satiate.

Taeyong hums at his silence. “If you can’t say it,” he suggests, “show me.”

It’s not like they’ve never been together, Jaehyun thinks. It’s not like Taeyong doesn’t know what he likes. So why does it feel different today, now, when asked like this? Why does he feel like he’s fucking drowning, when he’s not even the one half-buried in the sheets?

Bringing cautious hands to Taeyong’s shoulders, Jaehyun touches from the curve all the way to his neck, rumpling the sleeve as he goes. He pauses, grips a few stray strands of chestnut between his fingers and barely hints at a tug, watches Taeyong soundless tilt his chin back and exhale without breaking their gaze. Jaehyun releases him, and slides his fingers under the collar band, feeling along the dip of the bone. He doesn’t want the shirt gone—he likes the hiddenness of reaching inside it, that while anyone could see Taeyong covered only he gets to feel his way below.

“Show me more.”

Jaehyun remains obedient again. Fingers resurface from their exploration of Taeyong’s pulse and Jaehyun slides down the lengths of his wire-y arms, grazing over his hands and then the sheets until he can reach back and sink them into his thighs behind him. Taeyong’s legs tense at the grip; it’s a natural instinct, but Jaehyun takes satisfaction in knowing he can trigger these things. He keeps eye contact and squeezes again, a little higher up, even more satisfied to see that knowing it was coming couldn’t stop the older from tensing again.

“Is this what you think of doing when you look at me every morning?”

There’s a slow flush spreading up Taeyong’s neck, and Jaehyun thinks it has something to do with the pressure he’s put on his hips, but surprisingly the answer to that question isn’t yes.

“No,” he replies, his own voice still groggy, “it’s not.”

“It’s not.”

“Nope.”

Jaehyun decides that as nice as it is to touch Taeyong with full permission, it’s not conveying what he struggles to say. This isn’t about making him grow red and warm, and squirm beneath Jaehyun—all things he likes quite a bit, mind you—it’s about that safe, that place he keeps all the words he can’t force out. So he lifts off the slim hips and lies down on his side once more, the same position from which he catalogued the connected points that make up Taeyong earlier that morning.

Taeyong’s brow tightens. “What—”

“Slide down.”

He does, until the headboard is no longer supporting him, then keeps going and creates a brief moment of confusion for Jaehyun. Too obedient as well, too willing.

“No, not like that. Just...like you were. Resting. Asleep.”

Taeyong stops, pulls his hand away from Jaehyun’s hip and shimmies back up, rests his head against his pillow and meets Jaehyun’s eyes leveled. “Jae, care to explain?”

Jaehyun exhales shakily, surprising himself. “I’m trying.”

Taeyong waits. Jaehyun loves his patience.

“You…” he tries, feeling a distinct kind of fear at suddenly attempting to vocalize it, “you always, _always_ , overwhelm me. At every moment.” He stares like he had earlier, painting Taeyong into his memory with his eyes from head to toe twice over and one more time after that. “I have to just look at you. It’s never enough, I can never take you all in. And still you overwhelm me. How does that work?”

“Jae, you don’t—”

“It’s not in a bad way! I just never seem to get used to it. I’m not...the way you are, so…so...ethereal...” He brushes a hand over Taeyong’s cheek, following the line of his bone and guiding hair behind his pierced ear.

There’s a pout on Taeyong’s lips. It’s unfair that Taeyong can’t read his mind to see that it’s not a negative, what he’s trying to say. He can see the concern creeping up his throat and forming words behind his teeth, waiting for the opportunity to reassure.

He tries again. “Hyung, in the mornings, I’m not trying to restrain anything, it’s not a test of my willpower or something. I...want to see you first. It’s time for me to catch up before you outrun me again. Does that make sense? It’s settling into my own pace so once you get there, I’m ready, I’m prepared. Then I can handle it a little better.”

“Why are we running?”

“ _Hyung_ ,” Jaehyun whines, embarrassingly. But he thinks of a joke, and can’t keep it back. “You just make my heart race like that.”

He watches how the wordplay tick tick ticks into place, and Taeyong’s confusion crumbles into one of his light-splitting smiles and adorable laughs. Even if he doesn’t get it, this thing Jaehyun can’t really explain because he himself doesn’t understand, at least Taeyong will smile.

“Jaehyunnie,” Taeyong asks, smile subduing a few thousand degrees, “I don’t think I understand you. But please keep trying with me, okay?”

It’s so warm, so reassuring in Jaehyun’s ears, because he isn’t sure that’ll ever happen, but the commitment that Taeyong offers in spite of his rambling unintelligibility is more validating than anything he can imagine. Jaehyun reaches the few inches between them and shuffles until he can get his arms around the older, pulling him into his chest to wrap around him as much as possible. To wrap him up, enfold all the things he loves to look at, feel them all in the heat of the whole. He loves, loves the way Taeyong feels just smaller, his lithe frame that much slimmer and more angular against Jaehyun. Hands folded tightly around Taeyong’s trim waist, he notes with just as much pleasure as usual the way Taeyong’s body tapers towards his hips, yet still remains soft enough to pinch between his fingers.

Jaehyun sighs, allows Taeyong to wiggle a slim leg between his and hook it around, the oh-so-soft thigh warmly tucked just above Jaehyun’s knees.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get there, hyung,” he admits honestly.

Taeyong mutters against his clavicle, little red fingertips tip-tapping there. “Okay. I’ll just...keep loving you anyway, if that’s...okay with you.”

It’s a lighthanded way to say a big thing, and Jaehyun feels overwhelmed again. He burrows his nose deeper into Taeyong’s hair and breathes, really breathes him in, fills his lungs, lets go of himself into the overwhelmingness and floats there. There’s nothing more he can do. It’s unbridled happiness, even if it suffocates him from the inside.

“That’s okay with me.”


	2. Counting Breaths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here is the second bit...also written quickly and edited embarrassingly little :))))

Taeyong comes home with grocery bag-laden hands and full intention to make his tall, strong boyfriend rescue him from them. He finds shopping to be fun, enjoys seeking out the components of his recipes, and of course when he’s in his kitchen with them set out in neat arrangements to prepare he’s equally giddy. But carrying heavy bags he does not love, nor the pinching pain as the plastic digs into his arms and fingers under their weight.

He knocks at his own door, with some difficulty, and huffs when no one immediately appears to open it for him. Not even a second time, and he forgoes the third attempt to instead wrangle the bags around to where he can wriggle the keys from his pocket and open it himself.

By the time Taeyong hefts the bags onto the counter and disentangles himself, he’s too out of breath to even call out for Jaehyun, and a little pissed off too. Leaving the groceries where they sit, he kicks off his shoes back by the door and shuffles noisily into the apartment, complaints gathering in his mouth like seagulls looking for a target to dive after.

Halfway into the living room he comes to an abrupt halt and feels his anger dissipate in an instant.

Taeyong thinks the way Jaehyun looks napping in the afternoons has to be a figment of his imagination. There’s nothing about it that’s terribly unique or striking; Jaehyun often drifts off while reading, or losing interest in a game on his phone, or watching something mindless on TV. It’s an occurrence typically sequestered to weekends only, when he gets to be home free and isn’t required to do anything in particular (other than what Taeyong might convince him of). In essence, Jaehyun’s naps are totally normal, painfully domestic. Which is what Taeyong loves about them.

Sock-footed tip-toeing brings Taeyong quietly to the edge of the couch where Jaehyun’s more or less melted. He must have been reading while Taeyong was out—there’s a book lying on the floor, spine bent, only an inch below his fingertips as his arm extends off the cushion. It must have been sunnier earlier too, since his other arm bends like a shade just above his forehead, not quite covering his eyes but keeping them protected anyway. There’s no shade that can protect Taeyong’s eyes from the brightness of Jaehyun though, and the way it makes his heart ache to know this vision is now a constant in his life. Anyone, he’s certain, would bubble with happiness to come home and find a beautiful boy resting quietly on their couch—but this one’s all Taeyong’s.

He folds, bending slowly to avoid making a sound as he sits on the cushiony rug edging up to the foot of the couch. Like this, cross-legged on the floor, Taeyong is nearly level with Jaehyun’s sleeping form, the gentle rise and fall of his chest filling up Taeyong’s view.

It’s silly, thinks Taeyong, how much every tiny thing about this boy soothes him. The steady pattern of breathing that defines his sleep simultaneously creates a visual mantra for Taeyong, a meditation he can follow while feeling his thoughts loosen and unwind like disentangled thread. He can feel it, too, so he does: reaching a cautious hand up to rest on Jaehyun’s diaphragm, the firm place below his ribs but above his stomach proper where his body interprets each breath. If he holds his hand there, so lightly but still touching, he can synchronize with the flow, his own arm temporarily grafted and leeching Jaehyun’s peaceful energy.

Taeyong releases a silent, almost shaky sigh. He shouldn’t be allowed this. He shouldn’t be given permission to take pieces of a person to satisfy his own lack, make up for his personal deficiencies. It’s unfair to Jaehyun that Taeyong needs so much of him, down to his very breath, to feel like a functional person in the world.

A pang ripples through Taeyong’s chest, a familiar reminder that Jaehyun’s so complete on his own, so fully encapsulated in himself for the world that he can give himself back to it—and Taeyong...isn’t.

He barely registers the subtle change in Jaehyun’s breathing before he feels the hand slide up his back, coming to rest on the nape of his neck and gently, possessively squeeze there.

“Hey,” Jaehyun speaks just above a whisper, “creepily watching you sleep is my thing.”

Taeyong settles into the hand on his neck with a sigh. “It’s my turn to stare.”

“Got your fill now?”

An uncertain nod, one that doesn’t outright interpret as yes or no. Yes for the moment, no for life.

Jaehyun’s grip solidifies and he curls forward a small amount, his abdominal muscles clenching under Taeyong’s still-resting hand. He braces his elbow into the edge of the couch, leaning on it while bringing the other hand around to turn Taeyong’s face towards his directly. “Let me seal it up for you, then,” he murmurs, hovering close to Taeyong’s mouth before tilting his head up with a thumb and kissing him.

Jaehyun tastes just a little stale, like people recently sleeping usually do, but it’s not unpleasant. His breath pours into Taeyong like a spirit and the older wonders if he knows what he’d just been thinking, if he’s breathing fullness into the shortfall corners of Taeyong’s person on purpose. Taeyong’s fingernails scratch at the rug and Jaehyun’s t-shirt, the two different materials responding opposite to his touch—the rug opposes him, and the shirt yields and wrinkles into his clenching hold, an anchor point while Taeyong leans desperately to maintain the IV drip that is kissing Jaehyun.

The soft sound of jean sliding against suede alerts Taeyong that Jaehyun is moving, bending at the knees and turning, contorting himself to hold their lips together while getting his bare feet to the floor on either side of Taeyong’s folded body. Once achieved, he breaks their kiss for a moment, drawing a hand up to pull firmly through Taeyong’s hair while the other slips just below his underarm.

“You’re not close enough,” he informs, just as Taeyong hitches a breath, and then hitches a harder one as Jaehyun duplicates the position with his other hand, leans forward, and lifts Taeyong bodily into his lap.

“Don’t I weigh anything to you?” Taeyong asks, a bit breathless, bracing both hands against Jaehyun’s chest while the younger’s grip on his waist tightens.

Jaehyun grins slowly, his eyes still holding the warm bleariness of post-nap, and gets the closest Taeyong believes he can come to looking cocky. “Baby, I go to the gym for this and this only.”

A head-to-toe spark runs through Taeyong. “Just so you can lift me?”

“Just so I can do whatever you want. _Everything_ you want.”  

Taeyong has lost his anchor, feeling almost panicked at the sheer amount Jaehyun is willing to give him. He takes hold of his boyfriend’s jaw with near frantic fingers, latching lips to his again like he hasn’t breathed in hours. Jaehyun responds immediately, hands sweeping down to the crooks of Taeyong’s knees and pulling him even closer, caging himself between the older’s legs into the back of the couch.

The kiss is deep. It’s deeper than Taeyong has pushed for in a while, more recently letting himself dog-paddle in the shallow end of their physicality. But he’s fully submerged now. Literally lapping into Jaehyun’s mouth, rising on his knees to have the upper angle and force Jaehyun’s strong neck to stretch up and meet him. Taeyong doesn’t know what Jaehyun had been dreaming of in his nap, if he dreamed at all, but he allows himself to imagine he woke the younger only to manifest the fantasy, and keens into the shiver such an idea sends down his spine.

“Is this what you were thinking of while I was sleeping?” Jaehyun asks, voice husky as Taeyong shifts to his neck, framing a specific spot with his finger and thumb and latching his lips there.

The words echo in his mind, familiar to a morning conversation from a few days ago, but hazy. Taeyong wants this conversation to go differently, though; the feeling in the pit of his gut is too hot to simmer away like the time before.

“No,” he breathes, ghosting hot air over Jaehyun’s skin.

Jaehyun’s fingers pinch into the back of his thighs, stronger than his thin jeans. “No?”

Lowering, Taeyong places his full, if light, weight decidedly into Jaehyun’s waist, reveling in the hiss that action elicits.

“I was thinking of more.”

Jaehyun meets his eyes with a bit of shock, his pupils expanding and uneven breath coming out in labored little puffs. He may have been capable of snarky responses right upon waking, but he’s a second longer in fully comprehending how much Taeyong has returned home wanting.

Perhaps the energy from Taeyong’s brief moment of anger earlier hasn’t totally dispersed, instead re-purposing into energy for _something else_.

Taeyong bites his lip, smiles, draws an open mouth towards Jaehyun’s lips again and lets his eyes flutter shut to the feeling of Jaehyun’s body responding below him, breath beginning to mingle again—

“Oh _fuck_!” Taeyong suddenly yelps, simultaneously attempting to jump back off the couch and his warm enticing spot on Jaehyun’s lap. Jaehyun doesn’t let him, grasping his hips and absorbing the shock of Taeyong’s jerky movement into his arms.

“What?!”

Taeyong moans, the distressed kind, and pushes his fists against Jaehyun’s shoulders, trying to get free. “The ice cream, it’s going to be all melted—a-and the fish! Oh god, it’s all just sitting out, fuck let go of me it’s all going to be spoiled ugh!!”

He whines as Jaehyun begins laughing, practically flying off the couch when the strong hands at his sides release. As Taeyong rushes to store the groceries properly he can hear Jaehyun still giggling, unable to fully pull himself together and clearly amused by Taeyong’s crisis. A few minutes later, when he’s sure nothing went bad and everything has been safely refrigerated, Taeyong returns to the living room to find Jaehyun crinkle-eyed grinning at him and cuddling a pillow.

"You almost caused a disaster,” Taeyong blames him, pouting.

“Me? You left groceries out to pounce on me! I’m not sure I know you…”

“I was innocently looking, you’re the one who woke up and started things!”

Jaehyun smirks. “Innocently? Well now I’m _definitely_ awake,” he squeezes the pillow in his lap with implication, “so what are you gonna do about it?”

A bit of steam rises in Taeyong at the innuendo, feeling a burn from the mix of re-ignited annoyance and interrupted passion. Setting his jaw, he grabs Jaehyun by the wrist and pulls, using his own strength to force his boyfriend up from the couch and drag him along towards their room, leaving the pillow to fall to the floor.

“I have a few things in mind, if that’s okay with you,” he growls, tone suggesting little room for disagreement.

Jaehyun chuckles. “That’s okay with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> afternoons seem like the better time of day....tbfh.....

**Author's Note:**

> plot twist the one who is confused is not actually Jaehyun but in fact is me!!!!! what in heck!!!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Beautiful Contradiction](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16297184) by [GirlFromTheRing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlFromTheRing/pseuds/GirlFromTheRing)




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